A confession: I am an archaeologist and a museum curator, but a paradoxical one. For my museum, I collect things, but I also return things back to where they came from. I love museums because they're social and educational, but I'm most drawn to them because of the magic of objects: a one-million-year-old hand axe, a totem pole, an impressionist painting all take us beyond our own imaginations. In museums, we pause to muse, to gaze upon our human empire of things in meditation and wonder. I understand why US museums alone host more than 850 million visits each year.
我要懺悔: 我既是一名考古學家, 又是博物館策展人, 但是是很矛盾的那種。 因為我在為我的博物館收藏東西同時, 我也會把東西歸還到它們的所屬之地。 我熱愛博物館,因為它們 具有社會意義和教育意義, 但最吸引我的,是藏品本身的魔力: 一百萬年歷史的手持式斧頭, 圖騰柱、印象派畫作, 這些都能帶我們到 我們想像之外的地方。 在博物館,我們會停下來沉思, 凝視著這些代表著人類帝國的物品, 一邊冥想,一邊感到驚奇。 我能理解為什麼光是美國的博物館 每年就能有八億五千萬參訪人次。
Yet, in recent years, museums have become a battleground. Communities around the world don't want to see their culture in distant institutions which they have no control over. They want to see their cultural treasures repatriated, returned to their places of origin. Greece seeks the return of the Parthenon Marbles, a collection of classical sculptures held by the British Museum. Egypt demands antiquities from Germany. New Zealand's Maori want to see returned ancestral tattooed heads from museums everywhere. Yet these claims pale in comparison to those made by Native Americans. Already, US museums have returned more than one million artifacts and 50,000 sets of Native American skeletons.
但,近年來,博物館 卻已經變成了戰場。 世界各地的社區 都不想看到他們的文化 落入一些遙遠的機構手中, 而他們無法對其進行掌控。 它們希望能看到它們的文化寶藏 能夠送返回國,物歸原主。 希臘希望大英博物館能夠將 額爾金大理石雕塑, 這一系列的經典雕塑如數歸還。 埃及要求德國歸還它們的古董文物。 紐西蘭的毛利人希望各地的博物館 能歸還祖傳的文物: 刺有花紋的人頭。 然而,與美國原住民的要求比起來, 這些要求顯得微不足道。 美國博物館已經歸還了 超過一百萬件手工藝品 以及五萬組美國原住民骸骨。
To illustrate what's at stake, let's start with the War Gods. This is a wood carving made by members of the Zuni tribe in New Mexico. In the 1880s, anthropologists began to collect them as evidence of American Indian religion. They came to be seen as beautiful, the precursor to the stark sculptures of Picasso and Paul Klee, helping to usher in the modern art movement. From one viewpoint, the museum did exactly as it's supposed to with the War God. It helped introduce a little-known art form for the world to appreciate. But from another point of view, the museum had committed a terrible crime of cultural violence.
若要說明到底是什麼如此重要, 咱們先從戰神開始。 這是一個木雕, 由新墨西哥祖尼部落的成員雕刻而成。 在 1880 年, 人類學家開始收集這些木雕, 作為美國印第安宗教存在的證據。 大眾也漸漸認可了 這些木雕的美麗之處, 將它們視為畢卡索 和保羅克利雕塑的前身, 協助引領現代藝術運動。 從一個觀點來看,對於戰神, 博物館盡到了它的本分, 那就是將這些鮮為人知的藝術形式 介紹給全世界欣賞。 但從另一個觀點來看, 博物館犯下了可怕的罪行:文化暴力。
For Zunis, the War God is not a piece of art, it is not even a thing. It is a being. For Zunis, every year, priests ritually carve new War Gods, the Ahayu:da, breathing life into them in a long ceremony. They are placed on sacred shrines where they live to protect the Zuni people and keep the universe in balance. No one can own or sell a War God. They belong only to the earth. And so Zunis want them back from museums so they can go to their shrine homes to fulfill their spiritual purpose. What is a curator to do? I believe that the War Gods should be returned.
對祖尼人來說, 戰神並不是一件藝術品, 它甚至不是一件物品。 它是一種生命的存在。 對祖尼人來說,每年, 牧師們會根據儀式雕刻新的戰神, Ahayu:da, 在漫長的儀式中,賦予它們生命。 它們被供奉在神聖的神壇上, 就在那兒,守護祖尼人, 維持宇宙的平衡。 沒有人能夠擁有或販售戰神。 它們只屬於地球。 所以,祖尼人希望博物館 能夠將它們歸還, 這樣它們才能回到它們的家:神壇, 履行它們的神聖使命。 策展人要做什麼? 我相信,戰神應該被歸還。
This might be a startling answer. After all, my conclusion contradicts the refrain of the world's most famous archaeologist: "That belongs in a museum!"
這可能是個很驚人的答案。 畢竟,我的結論和世界上最著名的 考古學家的名言抵觸: 「那是屬於博物館的。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
is what Indiana Jones said, not just to drive movie plots, but to drive home the unquestionable good of museums for society.
印第安納瓊斯說的話, 並不只是為了電影情節發展, 也是明確說明了對於社會, 博物館有著無庸置疑的美善,
I did not come to my view easily. I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and fell in love with the Sonoran Desert's past. I was amazed that beneath the city's bland strip malls was 12,000 years of history just waiting to be discovered. When I was 16 years old, I started taking archaeology classes and going out on digs. A high school teacher of mine even helped me set up my own laboratory to study animal bones.
這種觀點不是輕易就形成的。 我在亞歷桑納州的土桑市長大, 並愛上了索諾拉沙漠的過去。 讓我感到很讚嘆的,是在該城市中 整排枯燥乏味的商店底下, 有一萬兩千年的歷史, 等待著被發掘。 當我十六歲時, 我開始修考古學的課, 到外面去挖掘。 我的一位高中老師甚至協助我 建立我自己的實驗室, 來研究動物骨頭。
But in college, I came to learn that my future career had a dark history. Starting in the 1860s, Native American skeletons became a tool for science, collected in the thousands to prove new theories of social and racial hierarchies. Native American human remains were plundered from graves, even taken fresh from battlefields. When archaeologists came across white graves, the skeleton was often quickly reburied, while Native bones were deposited as specimens on museum shelves. In the wake of war, stolen land, boarding schools, laws banning religion, anthropologists collected sacred objects in the belief that Native peoples were on the cusp of extinction. You can call it racism or colonialism, but the labels don't matter as much as the fact that over the last century, Native American rights and culture were taken from them.
但在大學, 我漸漸發現,我的未來職業 有著很黑暗的歷史。 從 1860 年開始, 美國原住民骸骨 就變成了科學的工具, 數千具骸骨被收集起來, 去證明社會和種族階層的新理論。 美國原住民墳墓中的 人類遺骨被偷取, 甚至連戰場上的 新鮮屍體都被帶走。 當考古學家不小心發現 白人的墳墓時, 通常會很快重新埋葬骸骨, 而原住民的骨頭卻會被存起來, 當作博物館架上的樣本。 在經歷了戰爭、 竊取土地、寄宿學校、 法律禁止宗教之後, 人類學家開始收集聖物, 因為他們相信原住民 在要絕種的關口上。 你們可以稱之為種族主義或殖民主義, 但這些標籤並不重要, 重要的是,在過去一個世紀, 美國原住民的權利 和文化都被奪去了。
In 1990, after years of Native protests, the US government, through the US Congress, finally passed a law that allowed Native Americans to reclaim cultural items, sacred objects and human remains from museums. Many archaeologists were panicked. For scientists, it can be hard to fully grasp how a piece of wood can be a living god or how spirits surround bones. And they knew that modern science, especially with DNA, can provide luminous insights into the past. As the anthropologist Frank Norwick declared, "We are doing important work that benefits all of mankind. We are not returning anything to anyone."
1990 年,在原住民抗議數年後, 美國政府透過美國國會, 終於通過了法律,允許美國原住民 向博物館取回文物、聖物, 以及人類遺骨。 許多考古學家驚慌失措。 對科學家來說,很難完全了解, 一塊木頭怎麼可能 會是活生生的神? 或者,神靈怎麼可能 會圍繞在骨頭周圍? 他們知道現代科學, 特別是 DNA 相關的科學, 能夠帶來對過去 既清楚又深刻的了解。 如同人類學家 法蘭克‧諾維克所聲稱的: 「我們在做的是重要的工作, 能讓全人類受惠。 我們不會把任何東西 歸還給任何人。」
As a college student, all of this was an enigma that was hard to decipher. Why did Native Americans want their heritage back from the very places preserving it? And how could scientists spend their entire lives studying dead Indians but seem to care so little about living ones?
身為大學生,這一切都是個謎, 很難解的謎。 為什麼美國原住民會想要把他們遺產 從保存的地方拿回去? 科學家又怎麼能夠花上一生的時間 來研究死去的印第安人, 卻似乎對活著的印第安人 漠不關心呢?
I graduated but wasn't sure what to do next, so I traveled. One day, in South Africa, I visited Nelson Mandela's former prison cell on Robben Island. I had an epiphany. Here was a man who helped a country bridge vast divides to seek, however imperfectly, reconciliation. I'm no Mandela, but I ask myself: Could I, too, plant seeds of hope in the ruins of the past?
我畢業了,但不太確定 接下來要做什麼, 所以我去旅行。 有一天,在南非, 我造訪了位於羅本島上, 曼德拉曾住過的牢房, 我頓悟了。 這裡曾經有個人,協助一個國家 縮小了巨大的鴻溝, 以尋求和解,不論多麼不完美。 我不是曼德拉,但我問我自己: 我是否也能在過去的 斷垣殘壁中種下希望的種子?
In 2007, I was hired as a curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Our team agreed that unlike many other institutions, we needed to proactively confront the legacy of museum collecting. We started with the skeletons in our closet, 100 of them. After months and then years, we met with dozens of tribes to figure out how to get these remains home. And this is hard work. It involves negotiating who will receive the remains, how to respectfully transfer them, where will they go. Native American leaders become undertakers, planning funerals for dead relatives they had never wanted unearthed.
2007 年,我被丹佛 自然科學博物館僱用, 擔任策展人。 我們的團隊同意,我們要 和其他許多其他機構不一樣, 我們得要主動對抗 博物館收藏遺產的問題。 我們先從我們櫥中的骸骨開始, 共有一百具。 數個月後,接著數年後, 我們會見了數十個部落, 想辦法要把這些遺骨送回家。 這工作很困難。 它涉及到要去協商由誰來接收遺骨、 如何用不失敬的方式來運送它們, 以及要把它們送去哪裡。 美國原住民領導人成了殯儀業者, 為了那些他們從來就不想 挖掘出來的已故親戚策劃葬禮。
A decade later, the Denver Museum and our Native partners have reburied nearly all of the human remains in the collection. We have returned hundreds of sacred objects. But I've come to see that these battles are endless. Repatriation is now a permanent feature of the museum world. Hundreds of tribes are waiting their turn. There are always more museums with more stuff. Every catalogued War God in an American public museum has now been returned -- 106, so far -- but there are more beyond the reach of US law, in private collections and outside our borders.
十年後,丹佛博物館 和我們的原住民夥伴 把博物館收藏的幾乎所有 人類遺骨都重新埋葬了。 我們歸還了數百件聖物。 但我漸漸了解到, 這些戰爭是無休止的。 「物歸原主」現在已經是 博物館世界的不變特性了。 數百個部落都在等著輪到它們。 永遠都會有更多的博物館, 裡面有更多的東西。 美國公立博物館中 所有被編入目錄中的戰神 現在都已經被歸還—— 目前有 106 個—— 但還有更多是美國法律 無法控管到的, 在私人收藏中, 以及在美國國界之外。
In 2014, I had the chance to travel with a respected religious leader from the Zuni tribe named Octavius Seowtewa to visit five museums in Europe with War Gods. At the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, we saw a War God with a history of dubious care. An overly enthusiastic curator had added chicken feathers to it. Its necklace had once been stolen. At the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, an official told us that the War God there is now state property with no provisions for repatriation. He insisted that the War God no longer served Zunis but museum visitors. He said, "We give all of the objects to the world." At the British Museum, we were warned that the Zuni case would establish a dangerous precedent for bigger disputes, such as the Parthenon Marbles, claimed by Greece.
2014 年,我有機會 和一位很受敬重的宗教領袖同行, 他來自祖尼部落, 名叫奧塔維斯‧西歐特瓦, 我們造訪了歐洲五間 有戰神的博物館。 在柏林民族學博物館, 我們看到了一個戰神, 它過去受到的看護備受質疑。 一位過度熱心的策展人 在它上面加上了雞毛。 它的項鍊曾經被偷走。 在巴黎的布朗利河岸博物館, 一位官員告訴我們, 戰神現在是國有財產, 所以他們無法將其物歸原主。 他堅稱戰神的服務對象 已經不再是祖尼人, 而是博物館訪客。 他說:「我們把所有 這些物品給予全世界。」 在大英博物館, 我們被警告,祖尼一案 可能會開創一個危險的先例, 引起更大的爭端, 比如希臘索求額爾金大理石雕塑。
After visiting the five museums, Octavius returned home to his people empty-handed. He later told me, "It hurts my heart to see the Ahayu:da so far away. They all belong together. It's like a family member that's missing from a family dinner. When one is gone, their strength is broken."
在造訪了五間博物館之後, 奧塔維斯空手返回家鄉見他的族人。 他後來告訴我: 「我的心很痛,因為看見 戰神在那麼遠的地方。 它們應該要在一起的。 就像是缺席了家庭晚餐 聚會的家人一樣。 只要有一個失散了, 它們的力量就會被破壞了。」
I wish that my colleagues in Europe and beyond could see that the War Gods do not represent the end of museums but the chance for a new beginning. When you walk the halls of a museum, you're likely just seeing about one percent of the total collections. The rest is in storage. Even after returning 500 cultural items and skeletons, my museum still retains 99.999 percent of its total collections. Though we no longer have War Gods, we have Zuni traditional pottery, jewelry, tools, clothing and arts. And even more precious than these objects are the relationships that we formed with Native Americans through the process of repatriation. Now, we can ask Zunis to share their culture with us.
我希望我在歐洲及其他地方的同業們 能夠明白戰神 並不代表博物館的末日到來, 而是一個重新開始的機會。 當各位逛博物館的展廳時, 大家很可能只看到 全部館藏的百分之一。 餘下的都在貯藏庫。 即使是在歸還了五百件 文化藏品和骸骨之後, 我的博物館仍然保有 其總館藏的 99.999%。 雖然我們不再擁有戰神了, 但是我們還有祖尼傳統的陶器、 珠寶、工具、服飾,和藝術品。 還有比這些物品更珍貴的, 就是我們透過將物品 物歸原主的過程, 和美國原住民所建立的關係。 現在,我們可以請祖尼人 與我們分享他們的文化。
Not long ago, I had the chance to visit the returned War Gods. A shrine sits up high atop a mesa overlooking beautiful Zuni homeland. The shrine is enclosed by a roofless stone building threaded at the top with barbed wire to ensure that they're not stolen again. And there they are, inside, the Ahayu:da, 106 War Gods amid offerings of turquoise, cornmeal, shell, even T-shirts ... a modern gift to ancient beings. And standing there, I got a glimpse at the War Gods' true purpose in the world. And it occurred to me then that we do not get to choose the histories that we inherit. Museum curators today did not pillage ancient graves or steal spiritual objects, but we can accept responsibility for correcting past mistakes. We can help restore dignity, hope and humanity to Native Americans, the very people who were once the voiceless objects of our curiosity. And this doesn't even require us to fully understand others' beliefs, only that we respect them. Museums are temples to things past. Now they must also become places for living cultures.
不久前,我有機會 去參觀了已歸還的戰神。 神壇位於高聳的平頂山上, 俯瞰美麗的祖尼家園。 神壇被露天的石頭建築所包圍, 露天的部分設置了帶刺的鐵絲網, 以確保戰神不會再次被偷竊。 它們就在那兒,在裡面, 戰神, 106 個戰神,包圍在祭品中: 綠松石、玉米粉、貝殼, 甚至還有 T 恤…… 給予古老生命存在的現代禮物。 站在那裡, 我得以瞥見戰神 在這個世界上真正存在的目的。 接著,我想到, 我們無法選擇我們繼承的歷史。 現今的博物館策展人 並沒有去掠奪古墓 或是偷竊聖物, 但我們可以承擔起 修正過去錯誤的責任。 我們能夠協助恢復美國原住民的 尊嚴、希望,和人道, 在過去,在我們的好奇心之下, 它們只是無法發聲的物品。 我們甚至不需要 完全了解他人的信仰, 我們只要尊重他們的信仰即可。 博物館存放歷史文物的神殿。 現在,它們也必須要 變成現存文化之地。
As I turned to walk away from the shrine, I drank in the warm summer air, and I watched an eagle turn lazy circles high above. I thought of the Zunis, whose offerings ensure that their culture is not dead and gone but alive and well, and I could think of no better place for the War Gods to be.
當我轉身,走離神壇時, 我陶醉在温暖夏日的氣氛中, 看著高空中一隻老鷹 懶洋洋地盤旋。 我想起祖尼人, 他們對戰神的供奉確保了 他們的文化不會消亡, 而會燃起新生且被好好保存, 對戰神來說, 還有什麼地方比那兒更好呢?
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)